


Ask and You Shall Receive

by virgotrocious



Category: The Boy (2016 Bell)
Genre: F/M, First Meeting, brahms is baebye right now but will be subject to bitch later, its 2am and im tired, multi-chapter, so heres a fic, vaguely spooky stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23458120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virgotrocious/pseuds/virgotrocious
Summary: When you moved into the Heelshire mansion hoping to take advantage of a great deal, you didn't realize that "fully furnished" meant a little more than you had bargained for.
Relationships: Brahms Heelshire/Reader, Brahms Heelshire/You
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109





	1. The first meeting

You hadn’t lived in the Heelshire mansion very long before the creeping suspicion that something was ‘off’ made itself known. You had heard from the realtor that the house had been on the market a few months and, despite its “stunning historical architecture” and “ceilings so high they’re to die for”, not a single person had been interested in buying. Until you, of course.

The realestate agent hadn’t been lying, per se, but everywhere you turned there were hints that the clean deal you got on the house and the lack of competition for its purchase wasn’t incidental. People in town avoided you at the market and in public, poorly concealed whispers about the ‘poor girl who bought the mansion’ finding you through every aisle. It was annoying at best, but no one seemed angry or malicious, so you brushed it off as the unfortunate result of being a stranger in a small town. 

The house itself had treated you very kindly as an experience thus far; for the most part, at least. You had never lived somewhere with so much excess space, and you seemed to be misplacing things left and right as a result. It didn’t bother you much though.

A bracelet going missing, after all, was nothing worth getting bothered about. Perhaps that mindset was one you would have adopted in permanence, but after about a week things began disappearing where you had no right to lose track of them. 

Tupperware, pairs of shoes, silverware; things that generally stay within a designated area, gone. It was peculiar in a way that made your spine crawl, adding significantly to the overall sensation of being watched; something which you had previously tried to attribute to simply not being used to the new environment.

You weren’t ready yet to give the phenomenon a name; certainly nothing supernatural—not until you had proof. It was Sunday when you finally got it. 

  
  


The sky was overcast and you were at your absolute wits’ end. That morning, you woke up to a pounding headache and the unfortunate realization that your phone was off its charger; somewhere in the godforsaken house that you were certain it hadn’t been before. You spent almost an hour searching for it, feeling increasingly lightheaded with every room you checked. 

You plugged in your phone. You  _ always  _ plugged in your phone. There was no reason it should be off its charger unless you had started sleepwalking and simultaneously gained the ability to make things disappear into thin air. You had checked behind every door you had ever opened, each kitchen cabinet, even under the bench that went with the grand piano you would never learn how to play. Nothing. 

Frustrated near the point of tears, you brought your socked foot down on the top step of a long wooden stairwell. The wood was smooth and slippery on a good day; had you been more aware of your surroundings, perhaps you would’ve chosen to tread more carefully.

The tumble you took was a dramatic conglomerate of noise and pain, creaking stairs and a loud thunk about ten feet down as your head collided with the solid, unforgiving surface that was old mahogany. Your brain hadn’t even had the chance to catch up with the rest of you before, near mercifully, everything went black.

  
  


When you woke up in bed, panic hit you before the pain. 

You knew for a  _ fact  _ that falling down the stairs hadn’t been a dream and had the bump on your head to prove it. There was absolutely no way you could have made it back to your bed alone in a state of unconsciousness as sleepwalking didn’t exactly apply; an affirmation more than a realization that had your heart pounding out of your chest. 

The bed beneath you had clearly been made and then unmade, not by you based on the messiness of it, and peeled away from the top corner where you had been tucked in. The knowledge that someone, or  _ something _ , had touched your bed—the place where you sleep—felt like such a stark violation of personal space and privacy that it crept through your body from the back forwards; as if the mattress itself were emitting something toxic and lethal, seeping into your skin through clean linens and settling around your bones. Suddenly, how your head spun and back ached mattered far less than anything else, and you were up in an instant. Then, perhaps unsurprisingly, down again. 

You groaned weakly from the floor, somehow managing to scrape together enough dignity to feel a bit of shame surrounding by your own vulnerability. 

At the sound of your ass smacking against the ground, the house seemed to creak and groan in tandem, and you felt a hellish sort of kinship. It tugged at your heart uncomfortably in a way that couldn’t be mistaken for gratitude, but might be twisted into a light of acceptance. Already feeling your face heat from the absurdity of it, you licked your lips and opened your mouth.

“Hello?” You sounded unsure and nervous even in your own ears. It was compelling to be polite; you were clearly at the disadvantage. “...thank you. For helping.”

You held your breath as silence proceeded your words, reasoning that if you really were talking to yourself, at least you wouldn’t be embarrassed for an audience. In fact, that was surely preferable to the alternative. 

A knock, quiet enough that you could have dismissed it as another song on the soundtrack that was a century-old house, sounded from the wall behind you. Gracelessly, you jolted at the noise and spun around so fast you could feel your brain scramble inside your skull. Wincing, you pressed a hand to your temple and prayed absentmindedly in opposition to a concussion. The wall was still and silent again, standing before you as it always had. A wall. 

Still, you slowly shifted forwards, not noticing how your lungs ached in protest of your bated breath, and pressed a cautious palm against the outlandishly outdated wallpaper. When there was another long moment of silence, you didn’t let it seize you again, muscles staying tense and alert. You heard something, not a knock, not a creak; your throat was so tight it was practically strangulation, heart beating like the deepest bass of a loudspeaker. Someone was moving behind the walls. 

You flew away from the wall and toppled backward onto your bed, for a moment forgetting your feigned casualty and confidence. It returned in pieces over the course of a few minutes and you tried to reason with yourself. 

It wasn’t an animal in there; no way. It would be too convenient of an out for the entire situation. An animal hadn’t carried you up those stairs, let alone made the bed you had woken up tucked in. And whoever it was—this was important so you repeated it twice internally for emphasis—clearly meant you no harm. It was creepy as all hell, sure, but you reasoned that it wasn’t as bad as it could be, and there was  _ definitely  _ no way you could just pretend you had never reached this realization; it would drive you mad. You inhaled deeply as soon as your lungs allowed it. 

“It’s, uh, okay to come out…” you tried, moving back a bit more to put some distance between you and the wall. The bed acted as a barrier once your feet touched the floor on the other side. “I promise I won’t run.”

You didn’t hear any movement. In fact, you didn’t hear much at all. The silence of the room was suddenly deafening as you strained for even the slightest hint of sound, only to be met with nothing but the rhythmic thump of your own heart in your ears. You almost opened your mouth to try again, but something caught your attention in the corner of your peripheral. The closet.

There was an odd satisfaction, a feeling of resolution, that mixed with the inherent horror of watching a dark closet slowly creep open. You didn’t know fear, however, until a large hand wrapped around the door frame, harsh lighting catering to an excessively blood-chilling reveal as a tall man emerged from the shadows. 

His eyes never left yours, large and intense as his masked face came into the full light of your bedroom. Your legs were shaking, small tremors compared to how your hands quaked, and the conscious effort not to move was a battle you were at risk of losing with every passing second. 

“Hello,” you said;  _ tried  _ to say. It came out a wisp of air, practically silent as it drifted through the air. Still, it must have met the man’s ears, as he responded by tilting his head. The action was almost placating, childish in nature, even if it did imply a certain brand of consideration. You wondered what was running through his head; it was a lot easier to think about that than process what was going on inside your own. 

He didn’t speak, and you had half a mind to consider the possibility that he didn’t speak English at all. Still, you tried again.

“What’s your name?” 

His reply, a blink, could only be described as owlish, and of all the possibilities running through your head, you hadn’t stopped to consider that this might be just as surprising for him as it was for you. You were about to give up, feeling the crawling sense of dread at the idea of having to cross a new boundary of communication—one that could lead to devastating misconceptions—when he finally spoke. 

It was so soft you might’ve missed it were the room not so terribly dead. 

“Brahms.”

And, oh.  _ Oh.  _ You knew that name. 

The owners of the house, they had a son, didn’t they? One that had supposedly died. You looked Brahms up and down quickly. One that had apparently survived. 

His voice mirrored that of a child, but the high pitch coming from behind a masked man seemed incidental in the overall abridgment of events. 

Once the stillness of the room became a burden too heavy for you to bear, and it was obvious Brahms had no intention of making the first move, you took a delicate step forward. The action flipped a switch in him. 

There was a quick second, like a still frame from an old movie, where all you saw was a blur of movement. His steps were soundless. The hitch in your breath was not. Shocked frozen, you wrenched your eyes shut and tensed for something. What, exactly, you weren’t sure. Impact of some kind, perhaps. 

Instead, there was a moment void of anything; soundless, motionless, weightless. It was like a fraction of a second in limbo, one that stretched the span of your entire life and was still over all too soon. A warm puff of air shifted the hair atop your head and your eyes flew open in an instant, met suddenly with a very clear image of the pilled fabric that covered Brahms’ chest. Embarrassingly, your gulp was audible. 

He was standing very close to you, nearly toe to toe, and with the smallest glance up you could see how his neck was craned unnaturally downwards, sharp eyes snapping quickly to meet yours. Wanting desperately to put some distance between the two of you, you pressed a palm delicately to his chest just as you had to the wall, and used it as a gentle hint to keep him in place as you took a step back. It felt like a violation of some code of conduct, like running your hands along a sculpture on display at a museum. Look; don’t touch.

Luckily, however, Brahms didn’t seem too opposed to the contact if of itself. Unluckily, as you made to draw your hand back, he grabbed you roughly by the wrist. His grip was too firm, tightening in such a way as to grind the bones beneath it. 

You made a sound akin to a whine between clenched teeth, resisting the overwhelming urge to struggle. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you expected another action, maybe one more violent, to follow. The clock above your bed ticked idly and he just stood; held your hand firmly against his chest. 

Ridiculously, you felt rude interrupting whatever moment he was having.

“That hurts,” you said quietly, trying to sound neutral, and failing. The statement came out almost as a plea, and he released your wrist as if the skin had suddenly become sacred ground.

As if it had burned him. 

His eyes were wide with uncertainty—shiny with a kind of glaze that contrasted harshly with the matte surface of the mask—and you wondered how many people had been in this house before you. How many had reacted with violence or fear. You made a decision at that moment, one that was damn near impossible to explain with words, but led to your arm reaching out once more. 

Careful to meet his eyes, you leaned forwards and returned your hand delicately atop his sternum, close enough to feel how his heart beat in his chest. It was a relief, almost, knowing it was racing nearly as fast as yours. His eyes pricked red at the corners and you were worried he might cry; no qualms with men crying, but you definitely didn’t have the emotional skills to deal with that situation. Luckily, you didn’t have to. Brahms seemed to gather himself and leaned against your hand ever so slightly. 

“Don’t leave,” he whispered, voice cracking at the end to give way for something deeper. It was almost startling; the reminder that he was a full-grown man. 

Your response should have felt damning, but letting the word slip from your lips was one of the easiest things you had ever done. A simple, uninformed promise.

“I won’t.” 

  
  


The next morning, you awoke alone in your room; phone plugged in and resting on the bedstand. When you reached a hand up to your temple, the sting and bump on your head was a relief, as was the open closet door. 

You took a deep breath, and decided that you were ready to start something new.


	2. Hard to resist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you hadn't seen Brahms since he first emerged from the wall nearly a week ago.

You didn’t see as much of Brahms as expected in the week following his initial appearance through your bedroom closet. 

It was eerie from most vantages; the knowledge that you could have eyes on you at any given time and simply not know, but there really wasn’t much that could be done to improve the situation. Truthfully, it was unclear whether or not the man making himself scarce was even an issue at all. It could be for the best, considering it meant not much in your life  _ technically  _ had to change. Not if you were willing to ignore a six-foot-three stranger living amongst what had to be abysmal insulation. Either way—preferable or not—you had seen hide nor hair of the man.

That was why, perhaps, when you woke up a little earlier than normal on a Saturday morning, the sight of a looming silhouette standing near the sink pulled an embarrassing yelp from your throat. 

There was a quick moment of shared panic as your sleep-wracked brain scrambled desperately to regain your senses and the man by the sink dropped something glass onto the floor, equally startled by the sudden intrusion. 

The shattering sound did wonders in syncing the room back with reality. 

Brahms had whipped around at your scream and didn’t seem to notice the mug he was holding slip at all. His posture was hunched and tense, stance telling the story of a man that was absolutely ready to bolt. Deer in the headlights seemed fitting enough. 

When you saw it was him, you immediately settled, which he took in stride and did the same. It was still unsettling, of course, but at least it was a monster you knew.

The two of you watched each other for a moment as your mind lagged its way through a reboot. It was struggling, obviously, because what left your mouth was amongst the dumber things you'd ever said.

“That,” you blamed lack of sleep and fear; the fright must have scared away its contents. You pointed dumbly at the shards of glass on the floor, “...was my favorite cup.”

  
  


Whatever Brahms had expected to follow your little fit of terror certainly didn't fall in line with the bullshit that fell from your lips, and his shoulders slackened slightly in response, spine straightening a fraction closer to his real height. You watched carefully as he tilted his head—something he seemed to do a lot—and you cleared your throat. 

“Have you eaten yet?”

It was as good a save as any, at least distracting from your stupid comment.

Brahms blinked, pausing before shaking his head. He looked incredibly out of place, awkward and backlit from the dawn light. The tension in the air was palpable, and pretending all of it was normal felt far easier than trying to deal with the situation critically. 

“Okay. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll make something.” 

He didn’t move as you walked up to a nearby cabinet, pulling it open to reveal an array of pots, pans, and the like. A piece of hair fell into your face when you turned back to Brahms.

“What’s your favorite breakfast food?”

The kitchen lights were still off, but just enough morning light filtered through the window as to give away how he perked up.

There was a disbelief in his eyes that was almost charming, his hands clenched tightly into themselves as if he were holding something back. A smile tugged at the corner of your lips when you saw the mask shift marginally around his chin, mouth opening and closing around words that weren’t there. 

“Something savory, or something sweet?” you prompted further, when it seemed like the joyous disbelief may have consumed him entirely. 

“Sweet,” he said, voice coming out high. Brahms scuffed a socked foot against the beautifully preserved kitchen floor, apparently having a hard time keeping still. 

You took a step towards him and opened your baking cabinet, watching from the corner of your eye as Brahms drifted closer without moving his feet. It was more of a lean really, like two magnets trying to meet through a solid surface. Without mentioning it, you pulled out some ingredients and set them on the counter.

“Alright then." Your voice was conclusive. “How do pancakes sound?”

Brahms nodded with a childlike enthusiasm that had you suppressing a chuckle down into what was nothing more than a strong exhale. This was good, you thought; now you knew the two of you could at least find comfortable terrain to traverse together. 

  
  


Humming throughout the process of making pancakes felt natural as you willed yourself to be content with sharp eyes following your every movement. It wasn’t an easy task, and you’d be lying to say there wasn’t anything to be questioned of your safety, but alarms weren’t exactly firing off in your brain. 

It felt vaguely as if you were trying to convince yourself that a tamed wolf was a harmless puppy; the notion not necessarily dangerous, but certainly not something to be pushed.

Idly, you thought of the iron grip he had managed on your wrist the night you first met—how your bones creaked beneath it—and had a hard time associating it with the man sitting at the kitchen table with squared shoulders and shining eyes. Your broken cup was still on the floor before the sink, and you dutifully ignored its presence. One thing at a time. 

The pancakes were served hot with a ludicrous amount of whipped cream and some strawberries on the side. You would be remiss if not to admit that it was surprising Brahms had stayed in place throughout the process of making them, as you had assumed he would be more susceptible to getting bored or fidgety while staying still. 

From his posture and the very little you could gleam of his expression, anticipation was your best guess as to what had kept him occupied. 

Once sat down at the table with napkins and cups of orange juice, you started eating first, picking up a fork and taking a small bite when it was obvious Brahms wasn’t going to start without a sort of prompting. In fact, you weren't sure if he was going to start at all. 

Brahms gripped the edge of the table—knuckles white, fingers twitching unassuredly—and glanced from his plate, to you, then back again. It occurred to you that maybe he was waiting for you to say something (did he think he wasn’t allowed to eat?), but the more he stared at his plate, the more you expected that whatever was troubling him leaned towards an internal conflict. Eventually, though, something must have won out.

He finally picked up his fork and,  _ oh.  _ You felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. 

With one hand now brandishing his silverware, the other was moving upwards shakily. It tapped against the ceramic of his mask and you could hear the soft ‘ _ clink _ ’ as his fingernails made contact, fingertips running to the edge beneath his chin. They slipped into the space between the mask and his neck and slowly,  _ slowly,  _ pushed away. 

The mask moving felt almost unnatural, like watching someone peel away a layer of skin, and your eyes were unabashedly glued to the sight. 

The whole thing felt very private, intimate maybe, as if you were being given the barest hint to a much bigger secret. It was a bit embarrassing how the thought of it made you giddy. 

When Brahms noticed your intense stare, he stalled; you were quick to look away, suddenly fascinated by the steaming pancakes steadily absorbing syrup on your plate. You took a rather large bite and swallowed it too early, as if pretending you had been eating the entire time. It wasn’t very convincing, nor was it subtle, but from the corner of your eye, you saw that it had worked anyways. 

Brahms slipped the mask only a tad further, just barely revealing the scarred curve of his lips. When you felt brave enough to fully look up again— when you were sure you could suppress any negative natural reaction—it was just in time to watch Brahms' eyes flutter shut as his mouth closed around a bite of mostly whipped cream. You had never seen such a shining piece of unadulterated contentedness, the room’s silence immediately weightless as it cushioned the peace. For that moment, you let yourself forget that this was a stranger—assumedly a rather dangerous one—that had stalked you for weeks. It was a little concerning, that something as small as a warm meal was enough to elicit such a strong reaction. 

You determinedly didn’t look at the heavy scarring barely visible above his beard, instead making sure your eyes were locked on his as they opened. 

Brahms' lips parted ever so slightly when he saw you staring again, and you wondered if that was a face he made often. 

You gave him a small smile before he could look away, returning quickly to your meal. Making a big deal out of his mask didn’t seem wise, and although worrying about frightening him away felt ridiculous (shouldn’t it be the other way around?), you were content with entertaining the idea. 

The two of you ate in a companionable silence from there on out, stealing peeks at each other when it appeared safe. When all was done and your plates were empty, you washed the dishes as Brahms carefully picked up the broken shards of your favorite cup from where it had scattered across the floor. His mask had been put back in place, and you weren’t surprised in the slightest.

A bit more shocking, however, was the sudden and uninvited sensation of two hands shakily slipping around your waist from behind. Uninvited indeed, but the goosebumps on your arms made it hard to argue unwelcome. 

At the cold touch of smooth ceramic against the back of your neck, your heart spiked. Before you could even think to panic, a man’s voice rumbled in your ear.

“Thank you.”

You turned to watch as Brahms pulled back, stance suggesting he might walk away; flee to disappear behind the drywall again. The look in his eyes made it seem like just the thought of doing so was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced. 

Heart still pounding from the perceived danger of being grabbed, you took his wrist and gave it a small squeeze. The storm of turmoil that clouded his vision settled and it was obvious he was seeing a little clearer because of it. You smiled unsteadily and nodded towards the archway out of the kitchen. 

“How about you pick a book for us to read?” 

The second the question registered, it was nothing less than a nail in your coffin. He nodded, and when you started the quick walk to the study, it was all too easy to miss how Brahms' gaze had sharpened with desire. He had let the first one get away, but he’d be damned to lose a second time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to kudos, but i run on comments! Let me know if I made a dummy typo or if you're enjoying the fic :,]


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